Pat Rollins: Ice fishing on the big lake

Tuesday

Feb 5, 2013 at 3:15 AM

When Pete called to tell me that he’d finally got around to dragging his bobhouse out onto his favorite Big Lake cove and wanted to know if I wanted to join him for a day of trout fishing, it didn’t take me long to agree to go along. He always sets his shanty in a spot that I fished for decades, and when he said they were catching lake trout with some regularity, I was ready to go.

“I’ve fished out there six times,” he admitted. “We’ve caught lake trout every time and my son managed to catch a three-pound rainbow on a tip-up that he set just a few feet from the bobhouse.”

Pete insisted we get there just before daylight and agreed to stop at for two dozen live bait on the way. All I had to do was get my gear together and meet him at the pull-off where we park. He’d have his two four-wheelers on the trailer.

After dinner I went down to the basement and grabbed my favorite jigging rod and a pair ofmy best tip-ups. Then I put new leaders and hooks on the traps and took a few minutes to sharpen the hooks on a handful of my favorite trout jigs before I headed to the kitchen and cooked up some venison steak with onions and peppers for some sandwiches to eat while we fished from the bobhouse.

It took me about an hour to drive around the lake to my destination and when I arrived, Pete was already there, both four wheelers backed off the trailer and running.

“I haven’t been here 10 minutes,” he said as he helped me tie my basket to one of the machines.

“Follow me......the bobhouse is a few hundred yards from where we usually fish.”

The sun was just starting to creep over Gunstock Mountain as we drove onto the ice. Normally the bobhouse is straight off the trail that leads to the lake.However, as soon as we hit the ice, my buddy started bearing to the right. Five minutes later, we reached the shack.

“I’ve found a new spot,” he said with a grin as we climbed from the machines.“We tried fishing the old spot several times and couldn’t catch a trout. We did manage a few decent white perch, but that was it.”

“Are you catching the lake trout with a jig stick or a tip-up?” I asked.

“Mostly jigging,” he revealed.

He unlocked the door of the bobhouse and while I held a flashlight, he threw two handfuls of pea coal in a little pot belly stove and lit it.

“When that gets going we won’t need our coats in here,” he said as he lifted the covers off two holes and chopped out an inch or so of ice from their holes.

“Looks like you were out here yesterday,” I said as I set my pack basket on one of the chairs.

Before we went into the bobhouse, Pete took the chisel and opened up two holes about 30 feet apart in front on the shack.

“You take the one on the left,” he suggested. “The water here is about 23 feet deep. We’ve been having our best luck fishing a live smelt about three feet off the bottom.”

I sounded for bottom, set a marker on my line and after hooking a lively smelt just behind the dorsal fin with a number 10 hook, I sent my line down the hole, making sure to set the line three feet off bottom. Pete did the same on his hole, then we headed inside the bobhouse.

I had already tied a nickel-colored Swedish pimple on my line, so I took a dead smelt, cut it in half and thread the tail end onto my hook before sending it to the bottom. When it hit bottom, I flipped my bail over and reeled up two turns and began slowly bouncing it off the seemingly mucky bottom.

“All we got to do is wait now,” I said as I watched Pete set a coffee pot on the stove which was beginning to warm the small building.

We both worked our jigs constantly for what seemed like two hours without so much as a bite when Pete just happened to look out the window as my flag popped high in the air.

“There you go,” he shouted as he pointed out the window.

I bailed out the door without my jacket and as I reached the tip-up I could see the spool still spinning. I eased the trap from the hole and with a quick jerk on the line, set the hook on what felt like a white perch. Minutes later, I slid a 14-inch long white perch from the hole.

For about 15 minutes, both Pete and I tended flags and managed to land four big white perch. When the action subsided we went back into the bobhouse and continued to jig.

I managed to jig out two yellow perch and another white perch. Then, I watched as my buddy set the hook on something big.